What is the evidence for offense-specific group treatment programs for forensic patients?

Evidence based practice (EBP) advocates that treatments offered to patients should be empirically supported and effective. Group-based treatment is offered in forensic mental health services as a way of assisting forensic patients (FPs) to address their offending behavior. However, little research exists examining how research and practice are integrated in these interventions, consistent with the principles of EBP. This study examined the utilization and evaluation of offence-specific group treatment programs with FPs, with a specific focus on interventions for substance misuse, sexual offending, firesetting, and violent offending. The results highlight that despite frequent use of offence-specific group interventions for FPs in UK forensic mental health services, evaluation is lacking regarding both published evaluations and through routine clinical practice. To ensure consistency with principles of EBP, recommendations are made surrounding the implementation of routine evaluations (e.g., follow-up studies) of offence-specific group treatment programs with FPs. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health on 26 August 2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14999013.2019.1648344